Whiskey Ties
by Darkest Absol
Summary: This is a collection of short fics centered around my personal pet au: What if Sera was Bourbon instead of Amuro, and was actually loyal instead of being yet another mole? Probably won't be in any chronological order.
1. A Mysterious Figure

Sharp eyes watched the lone figure retreating through the haze of smoke, narrowing for a moment before their owner approached with a faint smirk at how well the plan was working.

"Where are you going, Sherry?" The smirk widened as the targeted girl turned around with a look of surprise. Did she really think she'd escaped? "Come on, don't tell me you've forgotten me? Well, I'll remind you just in case. I'm Bourbon."

"I know who you are, Sera Masumi. Honestly, I'm surprised you're still working with them." To her credit, Sherry's response was pretty smooth now that she seemed to be past the initial surprise, even as the remark earned her a hard glare in response.

"It doesn't matter why I'm still working with them. Come on, hands up while we continue this at the storage hold." Sera said while reaching forward to grab Sherry's arm to guide her along. Most members would have used a gun to force someone to comply, but Sera was by all external appearances a teen attending high school in a country with heavy gun control. Besides, she didn't need a gun when the threat of physical force was more than enough to do the job. Making sure that Sherry was still moving, she used her free hand to send a simple message to Vermouth, letting her know that she'd located the traitor and was proceeding as planned.

"We're here, what now?" Glancing up in response to Sherry's voice as she slipped her phone back in her pocket, Sera released her grip on the former scientist's arm.

"You're going to enter that storage hold and stay there. Thankfully for you, I've been told to bring you back alive, so I'm only going to disconnect the hold from the rest of the train with this explosive," said Sera as she produced the aforementioned explosive at that point and set it down between her and Sherry to prove her seriousness. "A helicopter will be along not long after to collect you. Now get in."

"You say you want to send me back alive, but there's an awful lot of explosives in here for that." Blinking in brief surprise as Sherry revealed the unplanned explosives in the hold, Sera grit her teeth as she realized Vermouth must have planted them. No matter, she could work with this and claim she had no knowledge of the explosives later when questioned about it. Traitors deserved to die, after all.

"Change of plans, get in anyways." Stepping forwards to emphasize how she was blocking the only escape route, Sera watched as Sherry slid the hold door shut, sealing herself inside. Once she was sure that the traitorous woman wasn't about to leave, she bent down to activate her small explosive, only to bolt back upright at the sight of someone watching from the smoky train car behind her.

"Who's there?!" Stepping forward in an attempt to see who it was, Sera caught a glimpse of all too familiar green eyes before realizing the explosive she had placed was about to go off. Diving for cover behind a wall just in time, she flinched as a few bits of shrapnel caught her exposed arm, one hand coming up to stem the blood from the fresh wounds as she glared at the retreating form ahead of her.

"Akai..." What was that traitorous man doing on the train? He should have been dead, but then again, she'd always known how tough her brother was. It wouldn't be a surprise to see he might have survived somehow. Now wasn't the time for that, though. Sera had to reunite with her friends. Resolving to get the info about Akai's death later, Sera set off away from the gaping hole in the back of the train, jogging along until she managed to find the crowd of frightened passengers, and from there Ran and Sonoko.

"Hey, glad I found you two! I got lost in the smoke back there and ended up getting a little close to the explosions." A look of confusion as to what was happening completed the lie as her two friends immediately pointed out her wounds from the blast and asked if she'd seen anything odd back there. All thoughts about Akai were pushed to the back of her mind as she easily slipped into conversation, but they'd be back later. In the meantime, she'd just let herself talk with her friends.

* * *

 _Note that this chapter is pretty much lifted from the Stories From Beika chapter A Mysterious Figure for the sake of putting the AU in one place, but I edited a paragraph to make sure Akai wouldn't throw a hecking grenade at where his sister was. Feels better this way, though he still doesn't try and grab her because that would require trying to grab a probably combative and angry person when a bomb is going to go off. Incidentally, the original version of the chapter was removed from SfB to avoid duplicate stories._


	2. Dark Shadows

The last thing Scotch was expecting to have happen on that train station was for Dai to catch a middle school child following them. A middle school child who looked an awful lot like Dai and called him 'Shuu-nii' when caught. Confused, but feeling sorry for the apparently upset child, Scotch decided to try and cheer them up while his partner went to get a ticket.

"Hey, do you like music?" Scotch asked, pulling his guitar out of its case as he spoke to the child. This had the intended effect, and soon the child, who apparently was named Sera Masumi, was far more cheerful as they went through some basic scales. Time went quickly, and soon Dai was back with the ticket and Sera was off on the train.

"...A sister?" Scotch kept his voice low, aware Dai probably had a reason for not mentioning his family. Dai didn't respond, but that wasn't all that surprising. With luck, that would be the last Scotch saw or heard of Sera.

Why couldn't it be that easy? Someone must have been observing the train station that day, because several weeks later Scotch was being sent to gain Sera's trust in hopes of drawing her into the organization. She apparently had talent they couldn't afford to lose, especially if she was related to Dai. Speaking of Dai, Scotch had noticed there were some mutterings about him, mutterings about him hiding things and false names. Unhappy about this turn of events, but unable to do anything about it, Scotch eventually found the girl alone in the park.

"Hey, what's wrong this time?" Sera was upset again, though this time she seemed to be trying to hold back tears as well. Personally Scotch was hoping she would tell him to leave her alone, then he could have abandoned the attempt, but that was not the case as she seemed to recognize him and immediately huddled up to him for comfort. Soon enough she was telling him about how her mother had apparently died in an accident a week ago, leaving her without parents.

"...Remember your brother?" Every word stuck in Scotch's throat, but it had the desired effect as Sera blinked in surprise and nodded hesitantly. "If you want, I can let you see him again."

"Really?" She didn't seem to be thinking about it too hard, though the grief over her mom was probably affecting that. Remembering the info he'd been given, Scotch continued on in spite of his misgivings.

"You'll be able to see what he's been doing lately too, and maybe even help him. How does that sound?"

"...Alright." Sera seemed to have some misgivings, but the promise of getting to see her older brother again had won her over for the time being. There was nothing Scotch could do now besides set up a date and time for her to return to the park later to get the chance, and hope that she wouldn't show then.


	3. Descent

_Not much to say, but I did slightly edit the last chapter to reflect the fact that Akai probably didn't have his codename at the time._

 _Guest: Wow, I didn't think I was the evil one here, but I guess I'm going with it at this point._

* * *

Age 13

Masumi did not want to be here. She'd realized far too late that that Scotch guy had effectively led her into getting kidnapped by some sort of organization, and there was nothing she could do. She didn't even _want_ to do half the things she was being trained to do, but did them anyways due to not having a choice.

And then there was the loneliness. Most of the people around her didn't seem to like her much, or were outright suspicious. There were very few she could talk to, and she couldn't even talk openly with those who _were_ nice to her. Masumi's attempts at openly talking about her anger at being kidnapped with the other teens, the ones who she was pretty sure were born into all this, only resulted in them ignoring her. She longed to see Shuukichi again, or even her recently dead mother, or even any one of her friends.

As for the few who were nice, or at least didn't act like she was going to run away the second they turned their backs, they tended to vary. There was Scotch, who seemed to be sorry for bringing her into this mess. Masumi didn't really forgive him for the whole tricking her into a kidnapping thing, but at least he was nice. There were the few other teens who would talk to her after she'd learned to watch what she said, who weren't too bad once they warmed up to her. (And as it turned out, they were quite willing to share tips when it came to avoiding certain members, or how to better succeed at the training.)

There was her brother, Shuuichi. They didn't get to talk much, and the few times they did get to talk there was always someone else around as well. Masumi wanted to ask what he was doing here, why he was with these people, but she couldn't with someone watching.

But other than that, there was no one. There was nothing she could do but do as told and keep her head down.

* * *

Age 14

Things were still bad, but were slowly getting better. Masumi was slowly getting better at the training, earning more praise of her slowly growing skills. She'd even been given more focus on investigative work, due to the fact that she was particularly good at that. She still wasn't happy, but at least people seemed to like her more now.

Shuuichi had earned his codename at some point. Masumi didn't know exactly when it had happened, but people had started calling him Rye, so she figured that that was what happened. She wasn't sure what to make of it, but since she couldn't do anything about it she just went with it.

One night someone came forward and told her that Scotch had died, killed by Shuuichi because he had been a traitor. Masumi wasn't sure what to make of it, much to her confusion. On one hand, Scotch had dragged her into this through trickery and manipulation, but on the other hand he was still one of the few nice people there. Then again, wasn't he apparently a traitor? Sure, Masumi didn't know what exactly Scotch had done to betray the group, but it had to be pretty bad. Confused about how she was supposed to feel about this, Masumi ended up just trying not to think about it much. Scotch was dead, that was that.

* * *

Age 15

Just as things were getting better, everything went wrong. One night Masumi had been pulled aside and grilled about her brother's actions, if he'd said anything to her, anything odd at all. It had been a solid hour of questioning before she could even get an explanation for what was going on.

As it turned out, Shuuichi had turned on the organization, turned on her especially, to go running to the FBI. Masumi hadn't known he was planning to do that, and was stunned that she'd been left out. Why had he left her behind? Why had he left her there to suffer under the sudden lack of trust from pretty much everyone there, as though she was going to run after him at the first opportunity? Why was she left there alone, having to prove why she shouldn't just be killed? Masumi didn't know, and the longer she wondered and dealt with being treated like she was thirteen again, the more and more she began to hate Shuuichi. And the more and more she hated Shuuichi for betraying everyone, the more she hated traitors in general. After all, look what traitors did. They kidnapped, they _lied_ and _ran away_ and turned their backs on people who _trusted_ them.

In the end, Masumi didn't stand a chance against the clever manipulation designed to make her stay.

* * *

Age 17

A lot had happened since Akai turned traitor. Masumi had had to work twice as hard to regain lost trust, and while some people still didn't trust her, most were slowly realizing she wasn't leaving any time soon. She'd become exceptionally good at gathering info, and was now being sent out to find info about targets, about locations, about anything they needed to know. In fact, she was sent out to gather info so much her latest task was kind of weird.

Track down and kill a man who had had dealings with the Organization. He'd apparently realized that he was in over his head and made a run for it, cutting off all connections in the process. While Masumi had had plenty of training for this, it was still something she didn't normally do. No matter, a job was a job and she'd get it done as soon as she dug up some info about this guy.

It took some digging, but eventually she'd come across some interesting info. Namely, that he had a tendency towards helping people in need to make himself look good, and that he could not swim to save his life. Satisfied at the plan that was coming together, Masumi began the work of tracking down her target, slowly searching likely areas until she finally located him walking on the top of an embankment overlooking a river. This was too perfect, really. Taking a breath, she steadied herself before suddenly dropping to the ground near the water with a grunt of pain.

"Ow...A little help here?" Glancing up the embankment, Masumi was pleased to see the man heading her way. She continued the facade of having twisted her ankle up until she'd been guided up and standing with the weight off the 'bad' ankle, one arm slung over the soon to be victim's shoulders.

"Thanks for helping me." The apology was immediately followed by Masumi taking the opportunity to quickly shove the man into the fast flowing water before he could do anything to stop her. Quickly climbing up the hill to the top of the embankment, she watched him quietly bob up and down in the water for half a minute or so before he finally went under and didn't come back up, at which point she turned to leave. No point in sticking around now, even if the area was usually empty and dark at this time of night.

Pulling out her phone, Masumi quickly typed up a text confirming she'd completed the task and sent it to the specified address before moving to put the phone away again. However, the arrival of a new text interrupted her, prompting her to pull the phone out again to look.

'Good job. We have already confirmed you did as told.' So there had been someone else watching? Biting back a grumble of frustration, Masumi continued reading only to briefly stop in surprise at the next line.

'Your codename will be Bourbon. Return as soon as possible.' Staring in disbelief, Masumi stared while resuming walking, deleting the messages as she went. She'd earned her codename, but...it didn't quite sit right with her. Bourbon was a whiskey, much like Rye was a whiskey. She could only assume that they weren't letting her forget that her brother had been a traitor, and burned at the thought that she was still overshadowed by his actions. There was nothing she could do about it though, besides continuing to prove her loyalty and accept the codename of Bourbon.


	4. Watching from Afar

Well, guess I'm updating this. At three in the morning. Why do I do this to myself.

* * *

Finally settled into the new apartment, Masumi flopped back onto her futon with a sigh. It was only a tiny little thing, just enough room to rest, eat, and do her schoolwork when she wasn't out. Then again, anything too big would look weird when she was supposed to look like a teen who had just transferred into a Tokyo high school and needed a place to stay that wasn't a hotel. Thankfully _they'd_ been willing enough to make sure she had the money to pay for it, and all so that she could actually do her latest task.

Keep an eye on one Mouri Kogoro.

The man had been picking up fame lately for his...unusual style of deductions and sudden success, and of course that could become a problem if left unchecked. And so it fell to her to keep an eye on him and report anything concerning as needed. Which of course meant enrolling at Teitan High under a false identity (wouldn't want to be identified as that girl who'd gone missing several years back), getting a place to stay in case anyone asked, making a good background story that involved studying in America...

It was tiring. And now it was too late in the day to do anything, so now she was sprawled out across the futon, scrolling through news reports on her phone in hopes of finding some useful info about Kogoro. Instead, an entirely different article, one about shogi, caught her eye.

Apparently Haneda Shuukichi had claimed another title that day. A tiny, yet genuinely happy smile edged across Masumi's face at the news, and she longed to get in contact to congratulate him. Or at least talk to him again, she missed him and was sure he missed her too. And yet, it was impossible. Doing that would ruin everything, would bring on unanswerable questions and legal issues she couldn't deal with and all sorts of other problems that would not end well at all. And yet, the need was there.

"Great job, Kichi-nii. Wish I could have seen it..." The mumbled words did little to help as she set the phone aside and rolled over to get some rest. She'd need it, after all.


	5. Wake up Call

Grumbling as she was woken up by her phone receiving a call, Masumi rolled over in her futon to grab the offending device. The sleepiness was clear in her voice as she accepted the call with a weak greeting, blinking drowsily in the dark room.

"Where's your information, Bourbon?" Well, that was enough to wake her up. Then again, having to deal with Gin would wake anyone up. Dragging herself out of bed, Masumi stared out the balcony door at the sunrise, wondering just what time it was and why she had to be called so early.

"Look, it's..." She briefly pulled her phone away from her ear to check the time before quickly resuming the conversation, irritation colouring her tone as she spoke. "...barely five in the morning. I've been on this task of watching Mouri for three months. Of those three months, two and a half of them were spent setting up my background and identity, then I had to find an apartment and a high school to attend, and only _then_ could I start trying to get the info."

"Watch your tone. I expect you to have something soon." The call cut off, with the unspoken threat being received loud and clear as Masumi hung up her end and put the phone back down on her bedding. Sighing, she continued to stare out at the sunrise before turning to find some clothes to put on in place of her sleepwear. No point in going back to bed now.

"...Never trusted me anyways..." Grabbing the first shirt out of the still unpacked moving box, she continued to grumble as she set about starting her day. She was pretty sure Gin was one of those people who would have preferred to just kill her after Akai fled, with the only reason he didn't being because she was useful. No matter, she just had to keep proving her worth and get that info that would decide if the Sleeping Kogoro was a threat or not. She just had to do her job and prove her worth.

(Was she going to have to put up with early morning demands for info now? Masumi hoped not, but she didn't exactly get a say in the matter.)


	6. Break

One of the first things Masumi began learning after being kidnapped was was the handling of guns. She didn't like it, being forced to learn how to handle something that was outright illegal, but she'd already learnt her lesson about complaining and kept quiet. Besides, it was largely just gun safety, and eventually aiming at practice targets. As long as she did as told and didn't complain, everything would be fine.

Right?

Masumi's fourteenth birthday was greeted by the surprise of being immediately dragged off to an empty training room. Yawning slightly as she looked around, she noticed the handgun, ear covers, and goggles on a nearby table and went over to get them, saying nothing as she checked to see if the gun was loaded. (It was.) Only when she was ready to what she knew were the expected standards did she look towards the one way glass separating the room from the observation area outside, gun carefully pointed to the ground as she spoke.

"Where's the targets?" Indeed, there were no targets in the room today, just her and the empty table. Staring around, Masumi's attention was dragged back to the window as whoever was watching her today responded to her question.

"Your target should be arriving right about now." A sudden beep drew Masumi's focus to the door as it was unlocked, revealing two people outside. One of the people – a guy, maybe a couple years older than her, holding a switchblade – was shoved into the room by the other and shut inside with Masumi. Dread suddenly poking at her, she hesitantly turned to the window again, only to be caught off guard as the teen lunged for her.

"Hey, get-" Masumi's cries of shock were cut off by a loud shriek as the blade slashed her left arm, leaving a bleeding gash that stretched from about mid forearm to elbow. Martial arts training kicking in, she immediately grabbed the teen's arm, the one with the knife, and yanked him off balance. This was followed up by an elbow to the gut, and when the teen was busy wheezing for breath, hurriedly picking up the gun she'd dropped and backing away.

"W-why..." Masumi's voice shook as she stared at the teen, watching as he slowly got up again. "...Why do you want me to..."

There was no response from beyond the one way glass, no help forthcoming as she continued to back away from the advancing teen before her. Masumi's whole body trembled as she hesitantly raised the gun to aim, everything screaming at her that this was _wrong_ and she _shouldn't do this_ and -

The teen charged again, and Masumi, panicking, pulled the trigger. The bullet embedded itself in the teen's gut, dropping him and sending blood spatter everywhere. Masumi screamed, gaze fixed on the bleeding teen as he struggled to control the blood. In her haze of fear, she almost didn't hear the command from the woman watching her actions behind the window.

" _Kill him."_

Hesitating, Masumi grit her teeth before stepping forward, reaiming the gun at the injured guy in front of her. He looked up, staring her down with a look of pure hatred that brought her to a halt, briefly. Inhaling slightly as she steeled herself, Masumi muttered a quiet "I'm sorry" before shooting again, this time at the head.

The bullet struck true, dropping the teen instantly and sending a fresh round of splatter everywhere. Masumi herself didn't react, too shocked to do much besides shift the gun to her left hand so that she could use her right hand to control her own bleeding arm. She was too shocked to do much besides drift through the rest of the day, going through the motions of the rest of her training. It wasn't until night, after she was finally in bed, when she finally broke, crying into her pillow over what had happened just that morning.

"I...I killed..." She'd killed someone just a few years older than her, someone who had apparently failed at the training. Someone who could have had a future if it weren't for her.

(And despite her trauma, Masumi still realized that maybe it was a punishment for _both_ of them, a punishment for a boy who couldn't keep up with training, and a punishment for a girl who was still too hesitant, still not loyal enough, still needed the consequences of failure driven into her. A punishment meant to decide which trainee was worth keeping on. An all too effective punishment, as Masumi became more compliant, less questioning of her training, and, most importantly, easier to mold into a loyal member.)


End file.
